Review
FALLING FOR SNOW: A NATURALIST’S JOURNEY INTO THE WORLD OF WINTER
by Jamie Bastedo
Red Deer Press, 256 pp.
Like a snowball on the side of the head, Falling For Snow delivers its point with decided impact. Thankfully, the message is much more enjoyable. It is simple, too.
According to author Jamie Bastedo, snow deserves much praise instead of misdirected scorn. The idea may be hard to take for Calgarians (chionophobes) who are famous for whining about everything weather-related until it reaches 25 C. But the author is a snow nut, a true chionophile, and his argument is convincing.
To prove his point, Bastedo takes readers on a journey from the atmosphere, to the slide tray of a microscope examining the particles that make up each unique flake, to the inside of glacial poop. His passionate descriptions shed new insight into the complex and unique world of the snowflake.
And it’s far from a scientific book. A Yellowknife-based naturalist, Bastedo keeps the bits of lab jargon to a minimum. When they do appear, they’re broken into easy-to-understand language.
The majority of the book consists of wistful memories of snow, stories of snow-related outdoor activities and machines, and tales from people who live in snow. And it’s here that the writing is best. Capturing everything from subtle pleasures to awe-inspiring experiences with snow, Bastedo creates vivid images most anyone living in a climate with snow understands.
Stories gleaned from the Inuit of Nunavut add much interest and weight to his praise of snow. For example, explaining how the Inuit know the difference between snow that is best for making tea or best for an igloo, or how they can tell direction by the shape of snowdrifts as they travel across the tundra, makes you believe there’s more to the winter’s blanket than meets the eye.
Like the snow associated with its bullying cousin, cold, this book’s weakness also comes from outside sources. The section titled "Thinking Snow" is a compilation of other writers’ love and hate for snow and cold weather. While some of the examples are interesting, the section carries on too long, taking away from the whimsical tone that accompanies Bastedo’s writing.
This could be called a love story but that paints the wrong impression. Falling For Snow is a passionate, playful story about something that gets trod upon far too often.
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